[Use and abuse of drugs in cognitive impairment patients]

Irrational use of drugs for the treatment of cognitive impairment can increase health costs in developing countries.

to analyze the pattern of drug prescription related to the treatment of patients with dementia and to compare them with the income of patients.

313 community-based outpatients that seeked medical advice for memory problems, in the Memory Center of Zubizarreta General Hospital (Buenos Aires, Argentina), were prospectively assessed during a period of a year.

Patients' mean income was 502.81 "Pesos Argentinos" which is equivalent to US$152 per month (2007). Fourty one point fifty five percent (41.55%) of the patients had dementia, 15.65% psychiatric diseases, 15.01% mild cognitive impairment and 27.79% were normal. Patients received an average of 2.84 drugs/day, 20% of the patients took at least one drug for cognitive impairment (9.85% memantine, 6.38% donepezil and 4% nootropics, cerebral vasodilators or antioxidants), and 39.3% received psychotropic medication (28.11% benzodiazepines and 9.26 % atypical antipsychotics). Twelve point seventy six percent (12.76%) of the patients with mild cognitive impairment were treated with antidementials, 5.74% of normal subjects received antidementials. 4% of patients were exclusively treated with free samples.

In our sample irrational degree of using antidemential drugs and psychotropic agents was found.